


alley kitchens

by petalbridges



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Post-Timeskip, alcohol use, and now it's midnight and im craving ramen, it's just iwa feelings and ramen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 14:08:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29351724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petalbridges/pseuds/petalbridges
Summary: The tonkotsu ramen is warm, hearty, and tastes like Miyagi.iwaizumi hajime celebrates four birthdays.
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime & Oikawa Tooru
Comments: 9
Kudos: 66





	alley kitchens

**Author's Note:**

> i love you iwaizumi hajime
> 
> thank you to my friend for betaing/helping with this and listening to me ramble about ramen and imposter syndrome. find her work at [ao3 foggys](https://archiveofourown.org/users/foggys) and her [twitter](http://twitter.com/foggystwt)!!

On June 10th, 2012, his friends took him to their favorite ramen place as a surprise. 

Iwaizumi Hajime turns 18 at exactly 4:01 pm, surrounded by the people he calls his friends. Oikawa, Hanamaki, and Matsukawa had gathered the entire team in his honor, the little dining spot nestled in an alley kitchen rushing to put piping hot bowls of _tonkotsu_ ramen on the table. Despite the heat of summer, the warm broth feels hearty and homey, putting Hajime at peace. He washes away the heat with a matcha latte, and the bitter tang sticks to his tongue. It reminds him of hot summers spent under the watchful eyes of cicadas with Tooru, wooden spoons making quick work of little scoops of matcha ice cream. 

This is two months before he moves across an ocean, to a place with every imitation of his home - sakura trees, summer cicadas, the ocean and the mountains, even little alley kitchen ramen shops like this one, in Japantown - but is also in every way  _ not Japan _ .

Hajime knows in his heart of hearts that Japantown will not be his home in miniature and yet he holds out hope anyway, breath held as he passes through the _torii_ -shaped gate with  _ Little Tokyo _ written out in brass English letters. He’s not from Tokyo, he wants to tell his new college friends, he’s from Miyagi Prefecture, in Tohoku, due west of Sendai Castle. But he doesn’t say anything, instead smiles and nods when his friends ask innocently if this is really what it looks like in Japan. If he closes his eyes, he can pretend the romaji names are in kanji, that the little architectural nods are the real shrines guarding every corner, that the friends just footsteps away are the ones he left behind. 

Hajime opens his eyes. 

On June 10th, 2014, he is alone for the summer in a dorm leased to him for the duration of his internship. His roommate does not wish him a happy birthday, because he doesn’t know - even though the shape of the words  _ “my birthday is June 10th, 1994” _ are ones he’s near memorized from practicing them in English classes, he’s never actually known how to say them out loud to someone else. 

His mother had called him last night, at exactly 4:01 pm Japan time, to ask how he would spend his day tomorrow. He’d said his internship didn’t meet on Tuesdays but he still had work to do. He can hear her gentle smile through the phone as she wishes him goodnight. 

Tooru calls him at 4:01 pm Argentina time, 11:01 am for Hajime, and wakes him from sleeping through the morning. A barely-awake Hajime is hardly equipped to comprehend the genuine things Tooru says when it’s just the two of them, but he smiles anyway, sun and sanguine words warming his cheeks and closing the five-hour distance between them. 

Hajime has never been one for frivolity, and so his indulgent celebratory meal comes in the form of the specialty ramen from the corner store - a package labeled _nissin raoh,_ king of ramen. The _tonkotsu_ broth is a step above the powdered packets he’d grown accustomed to, and yet it still doesn’t touch the taste of summer back home.

On June 10th, 2015, he stands on a chair in the Taco Bell Cantina in Newport Beach and downs a beer in one smooth motion. The friends gathered at the table know this is nothing new for Hajime, but the ritual is customary - he’s twenty-one now, after all. 

The night passes in shades of bright blue, but never the right ones, bright neon lights and stars behind his eyes that chase shots of tequila. The fishbowl is also dyed blue, swedish fish thrown to the mercy of a gummy shark, four colorful straws pointing in each cardinal direction. The taste of alcohol blurs together at this point, something sweet and tangy that warms his cheeks and his head but never his chest.

He spends the latter half of his birthday in sunglasses and on his best friend’s kitchen floor, disposable chopsticks poking at the freeze-dried vegetables of instant ramen. The broth is too fatty but not in the way that he craves, thin and oily and lacking the distinct roundness of umami. The noodles settle his stomach but nothing more, and he’s left feeling distinctly like something is missing.

The rain catches him off guard in the winter of 2017, one semester into his master’s degree. Southern California has long since convinced him to abandon his rain boots and coat to settle for a light umbrella, but this morning’s sun lulled him into leaving it by the laundry room door. 

It’s from across the street, under the overhang, when he sees it - warm yellow lights reflecting on dark, rain-stained pavement, the wooden sign with ALLEY KITCHEN written under the kanji for _yokochou -_ bystreet, side street; alley, lane. A long, wooden bar extends down the length of the restaurant, stools seating a handful of college patrons, lit by the paper lanterns hanging from the ceiling and warmed by the steaming paper bowls set in front of them. 

Hajime crosses the street quickly, steps inside to be greeted by the smell of _tonkotsu_ broth and matcha. 

He orders the same thing he would at the ramen place in Sendai, sits down tentatively at the bench to wait. His latte comes first, layers of matcha and milk and white tapioca pearls presented in a sealed cup with the  _ yokocho _ logo and a black boba straw. It’s a little sweeter than his taste, but comforting in a way that tea had never been before, a small imitation of something he didn’t know he missed. 

The _tonkotsu_ ramen is warm, hearty, and tastes like Miyagi. 

On June 10th, 2019, the day before Hajime is awarded his master’s degree, he and Tooru sneak away from his parents for a moment alone. 

It’s not his first visit, but Hajime grabs his wrist and leads him through campus , points out his favorite places and speaks his memories into nostalgic words. Tooru wasn’t there to understand the stories but listens now anyway, content to see Hajime finally bright enough to rival the Southern California sun. 

It’s warm this time of year, light spattering of clouds doing nothing to protect them from the heat. Despite this, Hajime pulls Tooru down the main street, past the sign for  _ Yokocho _ Alley Kitchens, into the restaurant where Hajime can taste his days in Miyagi in the air that settles on the roof of his mouth. He seats Tooru at the wooden bar, orders their lunch in English but with Japanese words, and they both take their first bite of _tonkotsu_ ramen together. 

The warm broth feels hearty and homey, putting Hajime at peace. He washes away the heat with a matcha latte, and the bitter tang sticks to his tongue. It reminds him of hot summers spent under the watchful eyes of cicadas with Tooru, days long past that he still holds onto and remembers fondly every so often, memories with the bitter, sentimental taste of matcha ice cream.

It’s not the ramen warming his chest now, as he watches Tooru’s face through the steam of piping hot bowls, because as many times as he’d indulged at this particular restaurant, despite the way it distinctly reminded him of a childhood in Japan, he had never experienced it with someone he so deeply cared for. 

Iwaizumi Hajime turns 25 at exactly 4:01 pm, in a ramen shop, and it is finally a birthday that feels like a celebration again. 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading <3
> 
> find me on [twitter!](http://twitter.com/petalbridges)


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